Rob Pulham

In between cutting down the weeds on the railway embankment, I indulged in a little figure painting. Not something I do very often so I am quite pleased with how the loco crew turned out The fireman's shovel is still work in progress Unfortunately this one looks like they are taking a leak...

Hi Ray, I have the 2-10-0 version of the Roxey kit but I haven't built it yet so I can't comment specifically. I know that Tony Geary has built the 2-8-0 version which you will find on his Derby Line thread. Starting Here Sadly all the images are gone but they will probably be there on this thread on the Guild forum.

The wind dropped enough for a couple of short bursts of painting outside. This enabled me to get the chassis primed and then top coated. I also did all the other little bits that I missed when doing the body and tender, fall plate, doors etc. Before risking gumming up the motion I asked Warren Haywood and Tony Geary how they painted inside motion. Tony hand paints his and Warren sprays it. Warren did suggest that since the brief for this is weathered black rather than red to metal black it. Thinking this a good idea I had a go. I gave the chassis a liberal dose of acetone to hopefully remove all the oil then a liberal dose of Birchwood Casey Brass black. It kind of worked, the motion itself looked fine but the insides of the frames and motion plates etc. were quite patchy. In the end I bit the bullet and lightly sprayed it with black etch primer. Thankfully it all still moves as it should but I did mask it before putting the final coat of the rest of the frames.

Hi Chaz, If you want to polish but not remove quite as much of the blackening from rods or wheel faces, you can do a nice job with a dry cotton bud or piece of kitchen towel. Dry they are ever so slightly abrasive without being harsh

It depends on what you use as your drawing tool. It is possible to break a square in Inkscape but it's a convoluted process where you have to change the object to a path. Frustratingly sometimes you have to go through the procedure several times before the line actually changes colour

Contrary to my last post I decided to see if I could make the motor mount removable. It proved not too difficult to add a screw and retaining nut to the adjacent frame spacer. The motor mount also made a convenient place to mount a piece of Vero board which means that I can now remove both the motor and mount together without having to unsolder any wires which I count as an unexpected win. The hole in the tender plate which supports the bottom end of the pivot pin was much bigger than the screw itself (8BA) and after fiddling around for about 10 minutes trying to get the screw to engage in the nut I decided to turn a small bush to centre it. I am getting dangerously near to painting the chassis.

It's also worth investing in some cheapo self locking tweezers from pound shops. I bend them into all sorts of shapes to get them to hold things. At £1/1.50 for four you don’t need to worry too much about spoiling them.

Hi Chaz, My thoughts exactly, and you have preempted my next post. I have made it so that it screws on and is removable. I also fastened my wiring harness (a piece of vero board) to it too so all the electrics are removable without having to use the soldering iron. Photos to follow.

Creating a layout or diorama based on a real place or event with members of the Luton O Gauge Group The Luton O Gauge Group have a wealth of experience to share about designing layouts based on real locations. Examples include: Central Works is based on the Longbridge Car Plant and can be seen at Guildex 2022. Harpenden East is based on the real place that existed between Leighton Buzzard and Welwyn garden City until the Beeching cuts in the mid 60s. It is, in its entirety, 54 feet in O gauge. The Great Train Robbery diorama was created, not to glamorise the event but to depict the specific railway location and what happened. Members of the group will discuss considerations made when choosing a real location. What research has to be done and how you get started. In the case of The Great Train Robbery, there were ethical dilemmas to consider and they thought long and hard about what to include in this diorama. They will also discuss how you might have to choose part of a site and, how authentic you may or may not get. The event takes place on Friday 26th August@ 20:00 BST The event is FREE to members or £2:00 for non-members. You must register for this event as places are limited.

Not too much done on the J6 this week but it's almost there now. I had a bit of a fright when I fitted the motor and I couldn't get the body on but thankfully I had just put it in the wrong way round. What it did need is a motor mount/steady to stop it moving backwards and forwards inside the body. I cut a small piece of nickel sheet as a sliding fit between the frames and then cut out the mounting hole. I worked out where I needed to fold it and then decided to give the bending shear on the MiniFormit a try. I am pleased o say it bend it perfectly. Not being used to using it, to make bends. I didn't follow the bend through to a right angle. instead I finished it off in my hold and fold. I just need to solder it in now.

I have really struggled for motivation this week so haven’t achieved as much as I might have liked. I decided that the etched return cranks were a little under nourished and 2D so I added a bit of detail. First a turned a spigot on an offcut of rod and soldered the rear etch to it and drilled out the four bolt holes using 90 degrees spacing on my Proxxon mini pillar drill using the dividing head. Next, I soldered them to a piece of scrap etch from the kit drilled through the holes to transfer them to the other layer and cut around them with a piercing saw. I forgot to take photos of that bit. Then I made up eight (actually nine) studs from rod and microbore tube filed to a hex head and cut to length. And finally I assembled all the parts. Magnified as they are they look a little rough around the edges but it’s not visible at normal viewing distances.

Over on Western Thunder there was some discussion on the merits or not of Slaters Plunger pickups from a gent who had used them for the first time I mentioned that I was about to wire up the tender for the J6 with Slaters Plunger pickups and I offered to take photos as I went along. I thought they may be of use to someone else who may be contemplating using them but hasn't seen them before First I guesstimated the lengths of wire needed to reach from the plunger to the connections on a piece of Vero Board. These I soldered to the tags provided with the plungers Connection between the tender and loco is to be by a mini plug sold for PC's and bought via eBay some time ago. One thing that makes life a little easier when dealing with the 12BA nuts on Slaters Plungers is a pair of flat 12BA spanners available from Eileen's Emporium Here it is all wires connected to the plungers and ready to solder to the Vero Board Finally all wired up. - The observant amongst you will note that the size of the Vero board has changed in the last photo. I made a right pigs ear of soldering the first piece managing to bridge the gaps between the strips with solder so I did it again. Thankfully I hadn't got all the wires on before I cocked it up.

I got to fitting the rest of the 3D printed brake shoes to the J6 brake hangers today and then refitted them onto the pull rods. I don't think I have shown the loco sat on the body since it's pretty much complete. Just a few final bits like wiring it up and testing it before painting the chassis and weathering the whole thing I also fitted the back head a couple of weeks ago but didn't take any photos The rear view shows that making up the brake cylinders was worth it as they are quite visible when the loco is separated from it's tender.

Me neither, and that's embarrassingly from someone who has several sets of Slater plastic brake shoes in unmade kits and some 3D printed examples in a couple of others....

I wasn't really happy with how far away from the wheels the brake shoes needed to be to ensure that they didn't short. I rew up some brake shoes in Fusion and a friend kindly printed them off for me. Today I had the chance to test fit one of them. After checking that I hadn't messed up and that the etched hanger would go between the flanges. I bit the bullet, unsoldered the etched overlay and cut of the brake shoe from the hanger. The next question was how to attach the printed brake shoes to the hangers. I hoped to have the shoes free to move and after considering and discounting various options which involved superglue I settled on a dressmakers pin and short length of microbore tube soldered to the pin and then filed down.

Ahh, got you. No need to say anymore...

Thanks George, I have done a few DJH kits before without valve gear issues but not a Fairburn. Or rather the only issue I had, was one of my own making where a drill bit broke in a valve guide casting. What's the problem?

With the slide bars in place at the cylinder end it was time to start thinking about the outside motion. I decided to do it as two subassemblies and then join them together as I secure the rear end of the slide bars to the motion bracket. Along with the Premier Components coupling rods, came a set of the rest of the motion parts many of them very nice but some just didn’t work (or at least in my view). These are the combination levers and the union links. Starting with the combination levers, those fitted to the Princess Royals were fluted and the Premier examples plain. The union links in the Premier set are represented by a single dog bone shaped rod which is 0.9mm thick. The very visible, prototype union links have forked ends. After exploring options of combining the etches with the premier link I realised that they were each of different lengths so no chance of combining the two. After consultation with the gent that I am building it for, I went with the DA etched combination levers and union links but used the Premier parts for the rest of the motion. For me the most difficult bit of building motion, inside or out is “how do I fasten it all together”. For the front half I have tapped the valve rod 14ba and put a screw through from the inside. Visible in the photo below. The union links I have riveted with 0.8mm brass rod. I have a small piece of steel that I use as an anvil so I drilled a shallow depression in one corner to use to form rivet heads. Once inserted I peined them over with a small ball pein hammer. I also turned up some oil pots for the connecting rods. Not quite prototypical but they do look nice. While I am using the Premier Rods, I still need to use the DA etched expansion link and that’s where I was second guessing myself On all the other outside Walschaerts valve gear that I have built before, the radius rod is connected via a pivot below the main pivot of the expansion link. I thought I had assembled it wrong but after searching through a number of photos and reviewing the outside motion GA for 6203-62012 on page 38 of the Wild Swann book. It seems that on the Princess Royal there is no lower pivot point. Phew! Finally, I was pondering the brass bearing cap on the eccentric rod where it attaches to the return crank. There are some etched covers included but since the whole kit is etched nickel, they are nickel not brass. So, I had a quick go at mocking one up on the lathe. Although it doesn’t have the small screw heads and the oil pot it does look more three dimensional than the etch and of course it’s brass. I will sleep on it and see where I decide to go next with that one.

Back to the Princess this week after moving the J6 along. In the end I decided to take a bit more of the edges of the cylinders and then I fitted the covers. Before I did that I soldered the slide bars in place as I didn't want the heat from soldering them in place to spring the cylinder covers loose. As it happens I had to adjust one of the slide bars as I hadn't got it quite square and the cylinder covers are such a good fit that although the solder softened, they never moved. Something to aim for on future builds. After fitting the slide bars I mated them up with the motion bracket and realised that once I join the two together them crossheads become captive so I need to do work on the motion next to ensure that all is well before I solder the slide bars to the motion bracket. The first hiccup is a result of using extras to the kit. I used the David Andrews Slide bars and crossheads for the simulated inside motion because they don't have as much details as the LG Miniatures versions. Now I come to fit the LG crossheads with the connecting rods which are replacements from Premier Components I find that the LG crossheads are different to those that I have used on other builds in so much as they have a slot in them rather than an open back. This means that I will have to mill the connecting rod ends to get them to fit in the slot. A picture paints a thousand words or something like that...

Thanks Chas, The answer to your question is with a lot of trial and error. They will definitely need adjusting, or at least the front pair will. Having got everything else together now, I think that I will need to add slightly longer pull rods between the front and middle pairs.

A couple of weekends ago I was demonstrating Loco building at the Stainmore Railway Model Railway show. I took along the chassis for the J6 and had it running on the rolling road all weekend. Besides giving the motion a really good bed in it attracted a lot of attention. So much so that I plan to make up another chassis with inside motion for my demo stand. On the back of a great weekend out I decided to see if I could crack the construction elements of the J6 last week. The remaining jobs were. Fit glazing Add Milliput to the back of the balance weights to make them solid rather than just an etched front. Fit the sand pipes Fit the remaining linkages between the brake pull rods and the brake cylinders Fit some Frame extensions under the boiler between the front pairs of wheels to hide the rear of the wheels – following Tony Geary’s lead. Balance weights, I added a coat of primer to bled it all in before final paint and weathering. The first bit of the brake linkages Front sandpipes and Frame extensions. Before fully soldering them in I tested the frame extensions at one side by tacking them in and the seemed perfect. But the chassis mustn’t have sat down properly because I noted while testing for clearance on the rear sandpipes that they need trimming down a bit. Rear sandpipes. I had to fit the tops of them very close to the frames to avoid the injector pipework but I got there after two or three adjustments. Last but not least a couple of shot of the remaining brake linkages. Although soldered at the rear the ends of the rods are a loose fit in the turnbuckles so allowing removal of the brakes.

Nick Dunhill is a member of the Gauge O Guild Technical committee. He was formerly a research scientist, a gardener, a vegetarian café owner and now builds model locos for a living. It was a long apprenticeship but eventually he realised he could make a better living, building locomotives rather than cooking vegetarian food. Nick continues his series of presentations on scratch building a locomotive and this time he shows us how to build a footplate. This follows the boiler, smokebox and firebox demonstrations in earlier shows and videos of these sessions can still be found on the Gauge O Guild YouTube channel, just search Nick Dunhill. Please note that you do not need a YouTube account to view any videos. As usual it is at 20:00 BST. The date is Tuesday 26th July 2022. Members can attend for free and Non members pay £2:00

I have already replied once but lost it when I my broadband dropped out. Putting it all in aa word document in a labelled folder is my usual way of storing such info and backups are second nature after working in IT support for 20 years. The Clayton is unbuilt or actually the motor bogie is built and was so when I bought it. but the body including the trailer are untouched. What I can't recall is whether the motion has been assembled or not. I will have to look. I bought it from a very good builder and fellow Gauge O Guild member who is based in Germany so I was confident that the motor bogie would be fine. Indeed I broke off typing to have a look and both bogies are assembled and the motor bogie ran straight out of the box after sitting there for four or five years since I bought it.

This is really very useful Chas, I haven't yet got my hands on a 7mm Sentinel railcar but I do have a Clayton complete with trailer. I just need to remember all this research when I get to building it. The good news is that I have all the books mentioned so that's a good start.

That is superb Chaz, a real credit to you. Something you will enjoy looking at for a long time to come.